"A NURSERY DARLING"

A Mother's breast:Safe refuge from her childish fears,From childish troubles, childish tears,Mists that enshroud her dawning years!see how in sleep she seems to singA voiceless psalm—an offeringRaised, to the glory of her KingIn Love: for Love is Rest.A Darling's kiss:Dearest of all the signs that fleetFrom lips that lovingly repeatAgain, again, the message sweet!Full to the brim with girlish glee,A child, a very child is she,Whose dream of heaven is still to beAt Home: for Home is Bliss.

"A Nursery Darling" is a poem Carroll composed for the picture book version of the Alice in Wonderland stories, The Nursery Alice, first published in 1890 (I just ordered two copies from Amazon - one for my son, an avid fan of Alice and Lewis Carroll, and one for my new grandson's library.)From Michael Everson's introduction:

Lewis Carroll published "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" in 1865 and "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" in 1872. In the entry in his diary for 15 February 1881 he records: “I wrote to Macmillan to suggest a new idea: a ‘Nursery Edition’ of Alice with pictures printed in.” On 20th February 1889, some eight years later, after much preparation and negotiation with both publisher and illustrator, the text was at last ready. The illustrator was John Tenniel, who coloured twenty of his original illustrations in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” for this “Nursery Edition”.

The Nursery Alice original cover

The story itself is intended for pre-school children “aged from Nought to Five”. Running to just under 7,000 words, it is considerably shorter than both "Alice’s Adventures under Ground" (15,500 words) and "Alice’s Adventures in Wonder­land" (27,500 words). Much of the narrative consists of the author’s addressing the young listener, explaining the story by reference to the illustrations. The effect is rather charming, particularly where Carroll pokes fun at features in Tenniel’s illustrations. These were quite skilfully and attractively coloured. Interestingly, Tenniel coloured Alice’s dress yellow with a blue trim and white apron, whereas nowadays most artists colour the dress in blue and white only. (In Nick Willing’s 1999 film Alice in Wonderland, Tina Majorino’s Alice wore a yellow dress.)

In order to produce this volume, the original edition was scanned; the paper, being more than 120 years old, has darkened somewhat. The images have not been doctored, however, except that the border surrounding the illustrations has been removed. This edition also contains Carroll’s introductory poem “A Nursery Darling”, his 1890 Preface, and, as appendices, his “Easter Greetings” and “Christmas Greet­ings” to children. These were also published in the 1868 printed edition of Alice’s Adventures under Ground.